Print on wrapping paper, photos, disposable camera, dimensions variable. In a stationery store near my university, many people scribbled on sheets of plain paper to test the different inks when shopping for pens. I designed and produced a wrapping paper for gifts by collecting the scribbled papers and sticking them together. Then, I asked the staff at the stationery store to use it as wrapping paper for their customers and to take a photo of the wrapped gifts with a disposable camera. I chose this wrapping paper to wrap gifts because it is similar to the colorful traces of scribbles on paper used to test inks, where both of which are supplementary or byproducts. Through the site-specific work at the stationery store, I portrayed the relationships between people intermingling with each other like the scribbles.
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Box, disposable cameras, illustrated manual, MP3 voice manual, commemorative badge, photos, dimensions variables. I sent a box of disposable cameras and manuals to my friends, asking them to take pictures of their daily life. And then my friends sent these items to their friends with the same instructions. Following this process, the box continued to be filled up and moved around. Prior to the opening of the exhibition, the box was returned to me and I exhibited the box, the manuals, and the photos taken by the participants. As the box left the artist’s studio and took a journey that was determined by the many participants, I wanted to convey that the work could not be made with only the artist’s intention, but required the participant’s action by making acquaintances with people.
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Voice clips, 23:32, 2015 I asked four of my friends and family members (who did not study arts, but were familiar with my work) to imagine the ideal figure of the artist. The interviews were based on the questionnaire I prepared where I asked about the imaginary artist’s educational background, artist’s statement, advice for the younger generation of artists, daily life, and job. As the interviewer, I conducted the interview as if I were producing a real documentary on the successful artists, and my friends and family members played the role of the interviewees. Through the work, I looked for an artist from members of the audience who actively connected themselves with the fictional artists who were created by their own imagination. It seemed to me that the resulted interviews that described what my friends and family members had imagined were projections of what they wanted from me.
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Video still, Single channel video, 9:05 In this video, I walk away from the art museum’s entrance and I bow to the museum building twice, as I am participating in a Korean funeral ceremony. This gesture is performed to pay my respects to the art institution to which I belong as an artist, and at the same time, to say good-bye to its authority. After bowing, I walk to the opposite side of the museum, disappearing from of the frame, so the audience can no longer see me. In this context, the frontal shot of the enormous size of the art museum’s gate symbolizes its institutional authority. The video reveals the triangular relationship between the artist (as mourner), the art institution, and the audience (as witness).
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Painted floor, Parked Car, Dimensions Variables. The exhibition space called Woosuk gallery at my university was originally an underground parking lot. During the exhibition I used the gallery space as a parking so that its original function could be restored. In Woosuk Parking Lot, rather than being merely a standardized white cube for displaying artworks I demonstrated to the audience that a gallery space could also be a site with its own history and context.
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Acrylic box, prints, bottles of water, first aid kit, hammer, 37X69X25Cm The Emergency Art Box contains a first aid kit and an emergency supply of food, and provides museum visitors an escape route and a user’s guide for the outside of the museum on the occasion that the art museum encounters a natural disaster. The box only functions as an information map in normal situations, but in the case of an emergency situation visitors will need to smash it with the hammer hanging next to the box to access the first aid kit and the emergency supply of food. The information map does not show the visitor’s guide pathway but an escape route for visitors. I tried to set a direct relationship between the artwork and the audience by bringing to consciousness the reality of the exhibition space in order for the audience to perceive the museum space differently from the space’s intended design as an exhibition site for the display of art.
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Capture images, 3-Channel Video and Sound, 14:16 For this work, I record the consumption of meals that cost the same price as my hourly rate for a part-time job. The video is interrupted by a black screen with intermittent white text that pops up in alphabetical order. The text consists of a job description that includes the location of the job, the title of the job/post, and the hourly rate. In this way, the value and the content of labor inscribed in the text are revealed as the behind-the-scenes of my eating. By prioritizing my favorite foods regardless of my income, I try to find a way in which my labor connects to a form of personal happiness.
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Print, A4 size, Single Channel Video, 4:41, Variable Dimensions In the form of a video and a certificate in which I granted myself, the work legitimizes my skills as an artist. Labor has more often than not been valued as less than the final product. Because of this I have decided to focus more on these aspects of labor that are more closely linked to art as a particular skill. Additionally, I try to show that artistic labor is in close proximity to other forms of everyday labor – the use of wood tools is also used in everyday construction. Through the work’s self-certification process, the role or function of the artist is not given by art institutions but by the artist him or herself. As a result, the skills and techniques for an art practice, rather than being standardized are made diverse.
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